When home becomes classroom: The shifting roles of Korean immigrant mothers in the management of children's education during COVID-19 in the US.

COVID-19 has disrupted women's lives by increasing their childcare and household labor responsibilities. This has detrimentally affected immigrant women with limited resources, who invest in their children's education for upward mobility. Based on a content analysis of 478 posts on the MissyUSA website, this study explores the ways in which Korean immigrant mothers in the U.S. navigate the management of middle and high school children's online education during lockdown. Before the pandemic, mothers' tasks were largely limited to scheduling and coordinating private-paid after-school programs that occurred outside the home. However, the pandemic transformed mothers into active coordinators of public middle and high school classes and of private online tutoring, and de facto schoolteachers at home. This breakdown of boundaries between the home and tasks normally relegated to the outside world has burdened mothers with augmented roles managing the ordinary functioning of their children's education during the pandemic.

Understanding the Role of Ethnic Online Communities during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of Korean Immigrant Women's Information-Seeking Behaviors.

The rule of social distancing, coupled with the closing down of ethnic enclaves, has led immigrants to become isolated from their ethnic groups. In this study, we investigate the increasing role of ethnic online communities in immigrants' information-seeking behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. An analysis of 726 posts in MissyUSA reveals how an ethnic online community helps Korean immigrant women deal with the pandemic, reflecting the essence of a community amid societal lockdown. The findings suggest that these online communities supplement immigrant women's medical knowledge, build non-medical knowledge helpful to disadvantaged immigrants, and offer transnational knowledge regarding medical systems, products, and travel. These results provide evidence of how ethnic online communities promote immigrants' ongoing incorporation into society through the development of domestically and transnationally engaged medical and non-medical knowledge.

How Does COVID-19 Differ from the Flu/Cold? A Study of Multilevel Information Seeking among Korean Immigrant Women in the U.S.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to understand COVID-19 information seeking among Korean immigrant women in comparison to their flu/cold information seeking. In particular, the study aimed to examine: (1) the levels of information sought regarding both COVID-19 and the flu/cold, and (2) the content of information discussed at each level. Methods: We analyzed the posts on Missy USA--one of the largest Korean online communities for married Korean immigrant women. Two sets of data, one for COVID-19 (n=726) and the other for the flu/cold (n=50), were analyzed with codes at different levels, which were adapted from the social-ecological model. Results: Applying the social-ecological model, we found that about 80% of information regarding the flu/cold and about 60% of COVID-19 information was concentrated at individual, interpersonal, and organizational levels. Information seeking at the community level was more frequent for COVID-19 than for the flu/cold. Conclusions: Our finding that Korean immigrant women primarily sought information regarding COVID-19 serves as a theoretical contribution at the transnational level, which might be relevant for immigrant women during the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic.

Policy responses to COVID-19 and discrimination against foreign nationals in South Korea

While South Korean racism and discrimination against migrant workers and foreign brides are not new phenomenon, some early policies adopted by the central and local governments to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 have once again revealed the country’s deep-seated xenophobia. This paper focuses on three government policies – mask rationing, universal disaster relief funds, and local government subsidies – that were adopted during the first wave of coronavirus in South Korea from February until June 2020, when supplies were insufficient and the economy was most severely affected. This paper highlights the fact that government policies were based on nationality, which led to the exclusion of foreign nationals, even long-time taxpaying residents. Such institutional discrimination was blatant, considering the country’s decades-long discussion of multiculturalism. This paper points out that, as a country with a very low number of naturalized citizens, discrimination against foreign nationals not only reflects South Korea’s perceived boundaries of in-groups and out-groups, but also demonstrates the lack of a legal basis that prohibits discriminatory practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Critical Asian Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Men and Women's Different Dreams on the Future of the Gendered Division of Paid Work and Household Work after COVID-19 in South Korea.

Men's long hours of paid work and minimal commitment to household work, combined with the comparably low-level of women's labor force participation, characterize the gendered division of work and family in South Korea. Can the changes in work and family arrangements brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic alter the persevering gendered division of paid work and household work in Korea? Along with school closures and the increased number of employees working from home during COVID-19, do Korean men and women anticipate more equal sharing of paid work and household work? We collected data from 1000 Korean adults during the period of July 3-6, 2020, and asked their predictions about various dimensions of social changes, including the gendered division, after COVID-19. Although a substantial share of both men and women anticipate a reduction in the gendered division of paid work and household work after COVID-19, Korean women are not as optimistic as their male counterparts about this potential reduction. In particular, younger women are most skeptical about the prospect that paid work and household work will be less divided by gender beyond the pandemic.